[i][b]Rolvius III
The Overlook Lodge
29:34 Since Foreign Incursion[/b][/i]

Prime Speaker Varous Vannifar arrived on Rolvius 3 late in the night. Ongoing discussions of fleet deployments with Ministress Kiora had taken more time than she wanted to admit. For a Star Nation with a negligible fleet presence there was a degree of micromanagement involved with the navy that beggared belief. Two battlegroups were in orbit above Rolvius itself, a third was on its way to Manir, and the Fourth Battlegroup was escorting the [i]Gaea[/i] on its shakedown cruise in the Territhan Nebula.

The hotel bar was not the place she imagined herself setting up shop upon first arriving, but a harried-looking Minister Ran was nursing a bottle of whiskey while his aides were hashing out something or other over fried vegetables and sugar-caf.

"Mind if I jump in on this?" Vannifar didn't wait for Ran's answer, taking a glass from behind the bar and pouring herself two fingers of the amber liquid. 

Ran didn't raise any objections, just stared into his glass. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather you take the whole thing over. I've done nothing more than act as a glorified concierge since getting here and I haven't been this miserable since I was a boy back on the orchard with my clan."

"Mmm, about that," Vannifar paused, sipping on the liquid. "I'm going to need you to stay on site. We've got two esteemed guests already and we may have more in the future. The very near future. And I've got enough on my plate with the Lokoid."

"Don't pull my leg like that. The Lokoid are happy as clams, like the Terrans say." Vannifar made a face, but Ran only doubled down. "The Lokoid spent the day picking wild berries while we got everything set up. Olliana, by comparison, hunted a Charashar for sport. Brought back a buck with twelve-point-scale plates."

"Here's to her skill with an anti-matter rifle." Vannifar took a long swallow of whiskey.

"She used a spear."

Prime Speaker Varous Vannifar had never before sprayed whiskey through her nostrils. There was a first time for everything.

"You're shitting me! You can't hunt Charashar without heavy energy weaponry. They're bred for population control of Ythorna Grazers. The plates are thick enough to deflect flechettes and kinetics!"

"Well, we didn't account for Asrian training, the death of her brother the Prince, and a personality with all the subtlety and determination of a bull Ranasha with steel-tipped horns. She brought the head back into the lobby and demanded that it be cleaned and delivered to her."

"And? Was it?"

"I had to send the army to collect the hotel taxidermist from a vacation instead of leaving it to the apprentice. He's being shipped back from Rolvius II on military transport. The head is in the meat freezer, locked up so the Lokoid won't assume it's a delicacy and chow down on it."

"Right. Well, how would you like to handle this mess?"

"Is any more of the cabinet coming up here?"

"Only if necessary. And Lyra is staying on Rolvius Prime as the acting PS. Anything we propose here has to be approved by her. I don't know if Asrian Psychic abilities might sway minds, but they can't affect her from so many thousands of kilometers away."

Ran nodded, putting the stopper back in the bottle. "A good precaution."

"Kiora suggested it. Seemed prudent at the time, all things considered. So who do you want to take? The Lokoid?"

"It's my area of expertise. Counting credits is a male's place, after all. The Lokoid know we were in a hard position before the galaxy started to lose its mind. Now that the Federation and Commonwealth are withdrawing from Detente they know we can't get to a war footing without a substantial industrial backer behind us. I negotiated the shipbuilding contracts on Mezla- it'll take a solid month for a wartime destroyer to be launched from our berths and we'll be a tributary of a foreign power by then. Or dead. No one in the galaxy wants to put a single boot on our planets or risk our launching an Invasive Species attack. Not after what we unleashed on the Manir occupation. Hells, single fertile Tyranatar Queen loose in the wild could strip an entire continent bare of wildlife and vegetation within months. But they can always go around us. Even the threat of Lokoid industrial power helping us would make the galaxy sit up and take notice. We could see our fleet size doubled in no time flat."

"Just absorb what the Lokoid throw at you, and make sure to deflect. Don't make commitments right away, say you need to review the numbers with the Parliamentary Trade Commission. I know there's no such thing, but you know what I mean. The minute we put ink on parchment the whole peace could collapse."

"Prime Speaker, I'm wounded. You act like I've never negotiated trade contracts before."

"I know you have. But those contracts falling through wouldn't lead to trillions of dead. As for Olliana... I'll see what I can do."

"She just wants the dig site on Manir. Can we give her access? Call it a day and defuse the situation?"

"They 'just wanted the dig site' in the last war. And our best estimate is that they murdered one-hundred-million Rolvians to get to it. And if they find the key to Agdemnar's shield inside Manir, then who knows what they might unleash? I am not letting those monsters anywhere near that site again."

"So what do you plan to do about a raging psychic warrior princess who killed our alpha predator on the first day of her arrival?"

Vannifar had considered that for a long time on her journey to Rolvius III. There were many options to consider- the standard diplomatic path of offers, counter offers, fine print, and arguing. That struck her as definitively not Olliana's style and likely to piss her off and provoke Her Highness to rash action.

Which left one option, in her mind.

[center]--- --- ---[/center]

The morning after, the Lodge of Princess Olliana was awakened by the arrival of a three vehicle convoy carrying a party of twelve individuals.

Seven of them in common dark suits set up a wide-range security perimeter roughly a hundred meters from the entrance to the lodge, their sub-machine flechette launchers on the lookout for unwelcome visitors and wildlife.

Four of them unpacked the chests from the transports, setting up a small campsite and making all manner of racket and smoke, opening a portable stove and food preparation station while laying out a table and two chairs.

The twelfth, Prime Speaker Vannifar, in her best outerwear for the climate, approached the lodge and introduced herself to the Princess' Asrian security detail.

"Her Majesty is welcome to breakfast this morning with myself. Fried proteins, grain paste with berries, juices, and Terran coffee are on the menu. And please advise her I am prepared to discuss the reason for her visit..."